We’ve got good tech, we’ve got a nice planet, but we’re fucking it up by way of stupid laws. I’ve written about Kim Stanley Robinson before, when I reviewed his Green Earth. I mentioned his environmentalist and anti-capitalist concerns, his lyrical descriptions of landscape, his long passages where nothing much happens except characters talking to … Continue reading Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140
Go to the first post in this build log I left you last time when I had applied the primer coat successfully. Next, I sprayed on the Temperate Land Scheme colours, using LifeColor paints. First, I applied Medium Sea Grey to the under surfaces, then masked that area off, applied Dark Earth to the upper … Continue reading Hasegawa 1/48 Hawker Hurricane IIC: Part 2
Unnamed Point 273 (NO 276349, 273m)Blacklaw Hill (NO 288344, 284m)White Hill (NO 274338, 233m) 10.5 kilometres240 metres of ascent You’ll perhaps recall my previous expedition to Blacklaw Hill—I went in from the north, which turned out to be a minor assault course, and went out to the east, which took me into the unnerving neatness … Continue reading Sidlaws: Blacklaw Hill & White Hill from Little Ballo
There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy; it is not the bad taste of a country which knows no better; it has not the nervous vulgarity of England or the blinded vulgarity of Germany. It observes beauty and chooses to pass it by. But it attains to beauty’s confidence. E.M. Forster, Where … Continue reading Liguria
Ronnie was a short-legged hunchback and a social misfit; his navigation was pathetic and he was not competent even with a railway timetable. He never carried more than a sandwich, and often not even that, and was entirely dependent on the spontaneous goodwill and hospitality of keepers and shepherds. He only at any time had … Continue reading Elizabeth Allan: Burn On The Hill
pɛrɪˈhiːlɪən perihelion: that point in the orbit of a planet, comet or other body at which it is closest to the sun Well, time flies. Back on January 4, when the Earth was at its closest to the sun, I started off to write about words relating to perihelion, and got side-tracked into writing about … Continue reading Perihelion: Part 2
Dunsinane Hill (NO 214316, 310m)Black Hill (NO 219319, 360m)Little Dunsinane (NO 224325, 295m)King’s Seat (NO 230330, 377m) 8.5 kilometres360 metres of ascent Do you think I may be becoming obsessed with King’s Seat? I think it’s possible. But I wanted to get some photos on this part of the ridge for another project, and I … Continue reading Sidlaws: Dunsinane to King’s Seat
Geometry might well kill them in the end, but only a rigorous understanding of its principles could make their situation intelligible, let alone survivable. That quote comes from Part 4 of this novel, but it encapsulates what’s intriguing and (at least potentially) frustrating about the story—it’s about spacetime geometry. I’ve written about Greg Egan before, … Continue reading Greg Egan: Dichronauts
For the last few months I’ve been cutting a dash on the hills wearing the wrap-round headset pictured above. It’s the core component of the new Virtua-Trekker—the first application of Virtual Reality for the hill-walker or fell-runner—and the nice people at Bolt-On™ Cybernetics have been kind enough to give me an early prototype to review. … Continue reading Gear Review: Bolt-On™ Virtua-Trekker
In a previous post describing the Coriolis effect, I mentioned its relevance to space travel—if a rotating habitat is being used to generate simulated gravity, Coriolis deflection can interfere with the performance of simple tasks and, at the extreme, generate motion sickness. As an example of the sort of effect you could expect to encounter, … Continue reading Coriolis Effect In A Rotating Space Habitat